A contractor involved in the demolition of three buildings has denied breaking the law on the handling of asbestos.

Hung Key Cheong Yip yesterday pleaded not guilty to charges that it had failed to hire a registered asbestos remover or give at least 28 days' notice about the work, as required by the Air Pollution Control Ordinance.

South African prosecutors yesterday dropped murder charges against 270 striking miners after being criticised for using an apartheid-era law to hold them liable for the deaths of 34 fellow workers shot by police.

Officers spotted a five-metre-long speedboat, which had no navigation lights, near the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Corridor at about 2.30am. They pursued it and when it ran aground at Ngau Hom Sha, Lau Fau Shan, eight passengers ran ashore.

A man standing trial for the theft of HK$3 million worth of jewellery and cash from offices in industrial buildings lived in luxury in the Mid-Levels, yet he and his girlfriend had not filed tax returns in the past seven years, a court heard yesterday.

A detention official told a court yesterday that he had never heard of supervisors of discharged drug-rehabilitation inmates being barred from using a relapse as grounds to order them back for further treatment.

A reseller of baby formula has been jailed for 3-1/2 months for paying HK$800 in bribes to supermarket managers amid a formula shortage in 2010 and 2011 when mothers in Hong Kong stockpiled supplies, fearing they would run out.

Supervisors of discharged drug-rehabilitation inmates began testing for a wider range of drugs, including ketamine and Ecstasy, in 2009, a Correctional Services Department officer told a court yesterday, prompting a lawyer to question why they had taken so long to do so.